Playing with Data: Raptors Had Tightest Games in NBA

It was an incredibly entertaining Toronto Raptors season. That much is obvious, considering they blew away expectations and made an improbable run to an Atlantic Division title, coming within a point of the second round of the playoffs (and oh, that still hurts, badly).

The logic is this: great teams should blowout bad teams, beat mediocre teams by less and show parity with other great teams. Bad teams should be blown out by great teams, lose by less to mediocre teams and show parity with other bad teams.

Mediocre teams, then, should play closer games with both great and bad teams and show parity against other mediocre teams.

This is basically the crux of Pythagorean Win Theory, whereby point differential is the best predictor of future performance. Consider the point differentials for different groups of teams based on win totals:

55+

6.5

46-55

2.75

36-45

0.4

26-35

-3.2

26-

-6.85

It turns out that the more mediocre the teams, the closer the point differential, which is what we would expect.

The leap of faith here is that a close total point differential also means close games. The results from 2012-13 aren’t dramatic, but let’s look at that table again and include the number of games each team had that finished within a five-point margin of victory or defeat:

Wins

Point Diff

Gms +/- 5

55+

6.5

20.3

46-55

2.75

21

36-45

0.4

23.1

26-35

-3.2

21.9

26-

-6.85

21

Again, it’s not extreme, but the best and worst teams seem to play about two fewer ‘close games’ than mid-level teams.

Basically, mid-level teams play in more close games. As it turned out, however, the Raptors were 48-34, not quite the middle of the pack, and had the number nine average margin of victory at 3.24 (17th in absolute terms).

But still, thanks to some crazy fourth-quarter comebacks and a never-say-die, Undertaker-before-my-client-Brock-Lesnar-ended-the-streak-like ability to continue to fight back, the Raptors ended up playing more “clutch” minutes than almost any other team during the regular season.

Only the Washington Wizards, who played 242 minutes that qualified as “clutch time” (the game within five points in the last five minutes of the game), topped the Raptors’ mark of 212. What’s more, no team entered “clutch time” more often than the Raptors, who did so in 54 of their 82 games, four more occasions than any other team. Even leaving aside that the Raptors were generally terrific in the clutch (+8.2 points per 48 minutes), we were treated to more must-see basketball than maybe any other fanbase. Again, two-thirds of their games were within five points at some point in the final five minutes. MLSE owes us all some baby aspirin to help with our blood pressure.

Team

GP

MIN

+/-

+/- per48

Washington Wizards

46

242

-43

-8.53

Toronto Raptors

54

212

36

8.15

Charlotte Bobcats

48

210

7

1.60

New Orleans Pelicans

50

204

-11

-2.59

Golden State Warriors

43

200

15

3.60

Portland Trail Blazers

47

198

87

21.09

Atlanta Hawks

49

196

11

2.69

Miami Heat

43

189

24

6.10

Orlando Magic

42

182

-86

-22.68

Dallas Mavericks

48

181

60

15.91

Phoenix Suns

50

181

-7

-1.86

Boston Celtics

49

177

-98

-26.58

Cleveland Cavaliers

42

176

-3

-0.82

Milwaukee Bucks

40

173

-97

-26.91

Brooklyn Nets

38

171

1

0.28

New York Knicks

39

171

-22

-6.18

Oklahoma City Thunder

43

168

9

2.57

Memphis Grizzlies

49

166

102

29.49

Chicago Bulls

37

165

46

13.38

Houston Rockets

42

162

62

18.37

Sacramento Kings

42

162

-56

-16.59

Minnesota Timberwolves

41

160

-91

-27.30

Los Angeles Clippers

43

151

58

18.44

Denver Nuggets

43

148

-18

-5.84

Utah Jazz

40

146

-42

-13.81

Indiana Pacers

37

140

52

17.83

Philadelphia 76ers

34

136

-6

-2.12

Detroit Pistons

39

134

-32

-11.46

Los Angeles Lakers

38

115

-8

-3.34

San Antonio Spurs

30

113

50

21.24

And, of course, the Raptors made the playoffs and had a very tight series with Brooklyn, one I can no longer bring myself to talk about.
That’s pretty cool. End of article. I made my point. We got lucky with some awesome basketball.

Of course, there are more ways we can show this and since it’s late May and why the hell not, let’s have a look.

As mentioned, the Raptors ranked 17th in absolute average game margin, meaning their average game was slightly closer than the median and average team but not appreciably so.
That tells us a bit but not a great deal. For example, the following outcomes could all get you roughly in the range that the Raptors shared with the Cleveland Cavaliers: 72 one-point games and 10 20-point games, or 24 four-point games and 58 three-point games, or 40 10-point games. Same average, far different story in terms of how entertaining the season was.

So, let’s instead look at the league’s spread of outcomes and compare it to the spread that the Raptors experienced.
What this clearly shows is that the Raptors played a greater percentage of their games at lower margins than the league on average (though the curve lines have been drawn incredibly crudely and the tails don’t complete). For a better look, we’ll put the margins in bins rather than individual outcomes.
Just in case you had any modicum of respect left for my curve-drawing from above, I destroyed it here. However, what becomes clear from this more “zoomed in” look at the margin spreads is that the Raptors didn’t actually play a greater proportion of their games to a very narrow finish compared to league average, but it was their absence of blowouts that stood out. Nearly two-thirds of Toronto’s games finished with a single-digit margin, compared to just a hair over half of all games league-wide.

And just for further comparison, here’s the same graph but also including Charlotte and Philadelphia, the team’s with the league’s lowest and highest average game margins, respectively.
Again, it shows just how blowout-proof the Raptors were, ranking lower than even the Bobcats, who basically played their entire season to a draw, in blowout games.

So, hey, it wasn’t just fun for narrative purposes, we also happened to get generally more entertaining games than other teams. Hooray for graphs.